Leeds Method: Consolidating Clusters, An Example
I posted earlier this week about how and why you might need to consolidate (or combine) your color clusters on your Leeds Method chart. Today, I’d like to share an example from a reader named Bruce.
Original 9 Clusters
When Bruce sent me his chart, he had sorted 50 people into 9 clusters:
With a lot of clusters and a lot of overlap, Bruce’s chart would be more helpful if we consolidated some of his clusters. Although not always possible, we are hoping to be able to create 4 clusters based on his 4 grandparent lines.
Rearranging the Clusters
To consolidate clusters, I first rearrange them by putting clusters with overlap next to each other as seen below:
In Bruce’s case, we have overlap with the following clusters:
-
- Clusters C, D, & E
- Clusters F, G, & H
- Clusters I & J
Next we look to see if there is “heavy overlap.” In other words, do most of the people in one color cluster also belong to another color cluster? Let’s look at two examples:
-
- Do most of the people in Cluster D (gold) also belong in Cluster C (bright red)? Yes, they do. So I would consolidate or combine these two clusters into Cluster C. We would then ask the same question about Cluster E: Do most of the people in Cluster E (red) also belong in Cluster C (bright red)? Yes, they do. So I would consolidate or combine these two clusters into Cluster C. That means that Clusters C, D, & E were combined into one Cluster: the Red Cluster (C).
- Do most of the people in Cluster J (light blue) also belong in Cluster I (dark blue)? Yes, they do. So I would consolidate or combine these two clusters into Cluster I.
Consolidating Clusters
In this case, I consolidated as follows:
-
- clusters C, D, & E into a Red Cluster
- clusters F, G, & H into a Green Cluster
- clusters I & J into a Blue Cluster
- (Note that the Yellow Cluster, with just a single person, was left alone)
We get the following chart:
Now Bruce has 4 clusters, which is a “best case” scenario! These 4 clusters likely represent his 4 grandparent lines.
Bruce has been able to identify the Red and Green Clusters as belonging to his maternal grandfather and grandmother. He has a mystery on his dad’s side, so hopefully he will find the answer by researching the Blue and Yellow Clusters!
Adding Higher Matches
Let’s take this a step further and talk about the next step. The next step would be to add any higher matches. If some of these higher matches are related to you through 2 grandparent lines, they will likely match 2 Color Clusters.
In Bruce’s case, he only has 1 match above 400. This match only shares 401 cM. Interestingly, the person matches both the Blue and Yellow Clusters supporting the idea that the Blue and Yellow Clusters are paternal while the Red and Green Clusters are maternal. If Bruce can figure out this person’s 4 grandparents, it might help him with his own mystery!
Any Questions?
I hope this helped as you figure out how to consolidate your own clusters. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask!
Thanks, Dana
I have been playing around with DNA matches for 3 yrs and I still have one line of my grandmother’s unresolved so this may help. It has been interesting revisiting my earlier Leeds charts and adding new matches, consolidating clusters and actually understanding it much more than when I first did it.
Jenny, That’s terrific! Thank you for sharing, and I hope you are able to resolve your grandmother’s line!
Dana, have n clue about the Leeds method I first saw a post abt this 3 days ago and I have been dong genealogy many, many years. My email is bgreen700@aol.com will you please send me some information on how todo this and projected end results. Thank you.
Hi, Betty. I’m glad you found the Leeds Method! You might start by reading about it on my Leeds Method page: https://www.danaleeds.com/the-leeds-method/
Or, if you prefer watching, I have a presentation on Legacy Family Tree Webinars. You need either a membership or a free trial. The link is here: https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/quickly-organize-your-dna-matches-with-the-leeds-method/
Hope this helps!
Dana
Hi. Thank you. I am hoping this will help. What “paper” are you using? (Does this have to be “hand drawn”? ) Why would one of my matches only match my daughter & I? (Therefore IDK which side she is on?) Thank you, Kathleen
Hi, Kathleen. I use a blank Excel spreadsheet, but you can just draw one on a piece of paper. As far as the second question, do you mean there are no other shared matches – the person just matches you and your daughter? If so, how many cM of DNA do they share with each of you? If they don’t match anyone else, first of all, I think it would be a very low cM match. Second, you can work with the tree or contact them and you might be able to figure out how they’re related to you.
Dana I am so grateful for your sharing your method to sort matches. Doing this helped me to find my sister’s birth mother. Sadly she died three years previously. The method also gave us, with matches’s trees, her paternal great grandparents surnames. Now to do the leg work to find the father’s name.
So appreciative!
Dianne, Thanks for sharing your success story! I’m so glad this method helped you. Best wishes as you look for his father’s name!
Dana – would it be possible to work through my matches doing this and maybe, just maybe find my maternal great grandfather’s missing line?
Or, do I just simply not have enough matches? 🙁
Thanks and Happy New Year
Diane
Hi, Diane. I’m assuming I tried this with yours. I’ll email you. 🙂
Hi Dana.
Forgive me when I say I don’t understand what I’m doing. I color coded my matches and now I have 20 colors. Out of all the colors a few were assigned 7-8 colors. I’m so confused. 😢
Hi, Donna. Go ahead and email me a copy of your chart and I’ll give you some quick feedback. Please include the # of cM of DNA you share with your matches. My email is drleeds@sbcglobal.net
Hi Dana, I have spent a lot of time on the wrong track. I have gone down each match putting the shared matches as the same colour. I have about 48 columns. After reading your advice am I right saying that after doing the first one I then go down to the next one without a colour rather than going to the one below each time. Looking forward to doing it again if I am on the right track now. Thank you.
Hi, Marion. Yes! You’ve got it…you go down to the next person who doesn’t already have a color. Hope that helps!!!
Dana
Hi Dana,
I have colour-coded in Ancestry with their ‘Dots’ and have downloaded the ‘Auto Clustering from MyHeritage’ – boy that’s confusing. I started to try and colour-code the MyH Auto clusters and am totally confused. I thought I could then combine them. I also have matches elsewhere like GEDmatch and LivingDNA but Ancestry has my highest matches. Also MyH auto clustering uses ALL cMs it seems they don’t just stick to the 400-90 range.
I can see I need to do my own spreadsheet and follow your method – in Ancestry I only have 7 people in the range from 97 to 202 the next highest is 665 (and the only 1) Oh I do have a known niece on MyHeritage at 1900.4 cMs and 3 at 117.3, 94.5 83.1 I have sooo many at lower levels like everyone else I guess. MyH auto cluster used nearly all of them – no wonder I’m overwhelmed. Anyway I have plenty to do just gathering those that fit in the range BUT if some are on Ancestry and others on MyH or GEDmatch Living DNA then I won’t know who all my shared matches are unless they are all on the one site I guess.
Hi, Sue. My understanding is that MyHeritage tries to pick your best ~100 matches for AutoCluster. And, yes, that means they go pretty low! And when we have clusters of just a few people sharing very little DNA with us then the clusters are difficult to work with. Creating your own Leeds Method chart might be helpful.
As far as combining clusters across different testing sites…if you want to pick 4 colors to represent your 4 grandparents and do that across all sites, that could be really helpful! But, if you have unknown clusters at the various sites it would be difficult to compare them since the same people have probably not tested at all the sites.
Hope this helps!
Dana
Dana:
I was not able to attend the Second Cousins and the Shared cM project you did today (April 16, 2021) for the Clayton Genealogical Library in Houston. I really hated to miss after looking forward to it for weeks. Did you have a handout and is there a video available for this talk somewhere else that I can see.
Hi Dana,
Would you be able to take a look at my chart? I’d like for someone to confirm that I’m on the right track. 🙂
Charles, I am happy to give some quick feedback. Please make sure you include a column listing the # of cM of DNA you share with your matches.
Dana (drleeds@sbcglobal.net)
Hi Dana,
I am currently trying to figure out who fathered my GG Grandfather through my ancestry matches. I followed your Leeds method, and I was able to color code 40 of my 2nd-3rd cousin matches; however, I do not understand how to complete the consolidation portion of the process. At this point, I believe my brain is fried, because I also tried the ancestry clustering tool prior to this. Is there anyway that you would be willing to take a look at what I have, and help me figure out how it should be consolidated?
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Sure! Just email me a screenshot (or spreadsheet). Please include the # of cM of the matches. I’m happy to provide some quick feedback.
Dana
Hi Dana,
When Ancestry first gave us the colored dots, I got carried away and used all of them up! I did not find your method until much later but I think it is a good method! Should I just start over and eliminate my colored groups and go to the Leeds method? I wish Ancestry would offer the same colors that you and even some of the software programs use for color coding! Sure would make more sense!
Margo
Hi, Margo. Good question! I would say it’s up to you. 🙂 Are you finding the color groups you’ve already created useful? If so, you could just continue with them. If you’d like to add your Leeds Method groups, hopefully you can find some to delete. It’s pretty easy to just delete a few colors and reuse them.
Best wishes!
Dana
I am looking for my paternal grandfather’s line. I don’t know the name. I have few 2nd and 3rd cousin matches and all match to my three other know family lines. I have two clusters that might be the lost line. One cluster 59 cms to 5 segments has 300 matches and the other cluster 64 cms to 3 segments had 102 matches. 81 matches are in both clusters. There are also 11 matches to my grandmother’s line. Does this mean it is her line? FYI: I used one person with an extensive family tree in this group to run a thru lines on my DNA and got over 100 matches to the 5th great grandparents on both sides. In this tree there were no matches to my other family lines that I could see.
Hi, Paula. My apologies for the delay! I somehow overlooked your comment.
It could be! You mention 11 people also match your grandmother’s line. Did your grandfather and grandmother come from the same area? If so, that could be the reason. Also, I’m not sure if you mean there are 300 matches to a person with 59 cM. I think you might be seeing some pedigree collapse or endogamy on this line but I can’t really tell from what’s been shared. When either some direct ancestors are cousins who marry (pedigree collapse) or there is an isolated population who intermarried over many generations (endogamy) it makes people related multiple ways and the DNA can be a lot more confusing.
Hi Dana
Thank you for your Leeds method…it has honed down some of my matches but I am confused by others. I have added common ancestors to my spreadsheet. Would you be able to have a look at my spreadsheet, please? I only have 33 2nd cousin matches and ended up with 7 columns. My blue Hogan column makes sense as does my orange and brown Parsons columns…but the others have me totally confused. They are my paternal line and there are so many question marks with that line.
Thanks
Dianne
Hi, Dianne. Email me a screenshot or the spreadsheet – and include a column for the # of cM – and I’m happy to give you some quick feedback.
Dana, leeds_dana@yahoo.com
I have 13 groups with a case I’m currently working on and 5 look like they are all one, and if I put them all in the one then I still have five groups remaining. I’m so confused and going in circles. I did send you a direct message through your contact page. We have been at this a while and not sure what I’m doing anymore.
Hi, Amanda. If it looks like they should be combined, I would combine them. Having 5 clusters is totally fine! Not everyone will get 4 clusters. The number of clusters you get is based on your family tree and who has tested. For example, if people haven’t tested on a particular line in the 90 to 400 cM range then you will not get a cluster for that group. To get a cluster for a particular grandparent line (or, in other words, the descendants of a great grandparent pair), you need something like a 2nd cousin. If you don’t have that you’ll be getting more and smaller groups. These 2nd cousins “tie” our matches together.
Whatever groups you get, the next step is to figure out why each cluster formed. How do they people in the cluster match each other? How do they match you?
Best wishes!
Hello Dana, I am trying to help a friend solve his adoption mystery. We have found his birth mother and are working on his birth father. How can I tell if there is endogamy using his shared matches? He was a twin, so our ultimate goal is to find her before it is too late. So far, no matches are close enough to be descendants of her. Thank you.
Linda
Hi, Linda. First of all, when working with adoptions it is very helpful to be at all 4 of the big testing sites. In other words, I recommend testing at Ancestry and 23andMe and then transferring the raw DNA data to MyHeritage and FamilyTreeDNA.
As far as endogamy, here’s a nice post by Leah Larkin that might help: https://thednageek.com/the-endogamy-files-what-is-endogamy/
Dana
I’m trying to help my cousin find her biological father. Through her dna tests with Ancestry and 23 & Me, I was able to identify her paternal grandfather, but I have been unable to determine who her paternal grandmother is. This is necessary as her paternal grandfather died at the age of 23 in an accident. I believe her father was raised by his mother. But I’m having difficulty determining which DNA matched are connected to the paternal grandmother. After doing the Leeds chart, first using 40cM through 400cM then doing one including third cousins, I’m more confused than ever. Would someone be able to look at my charts and try to determine if I have a column that is for paternal grandmother? I’m a bit worried that there’s some endogamy on that side of her family.
Hi, Lori. You can send me your Leeds Method chart to drleeds@sbcglobal.net and I’m happy to provide some quick feedback. Please include the # of cM of DNA for each match.
Dana
Hello! I am helping someone find their dad but at the same time they do not know who their maternal grandfather is. I have completed the chart as much as possible and I am stuck at consolidating. My friend only has a few that overlap. What do I do with those?
Hi, Carrie. If there are only a few people who overlap, you can leave them as is and work with the clusters that you already have. Try to find a common ancestor or ancestral couple for each cluster. Hope that helps!
I’m trying to help my friend find her paternal grandfather (NPE). I’ve done a Leeds chart, but I’m not sure how I use this info to help me find this gentleman. Also, I have 5 columns and don’t understand what to do with that.
Any help you could give me would be greatly appreciated.
Hi, Dianne. First of all, 5 columns are fine. You can work with them as is or you can see if you can consolidate any of them. Search my website for “Consolidate” or “overlap.” Second, you need to figure out which cluster (or clusters) can you help you. Hopefully, when you start looking at the groups of matches, you will realize that 3 or 4 of them align with already known grandparents. So then you focus on the unknown 1-2 (possibly more) clusters. Start looking at the trees of these individuals. (Sometimes you have to build trees!) Look for ancestors that repeat in the various trees. Then start looking for a potential candidate for this individual’s parent(s).
Best wishes,
Dana
How did you get the “higher” matches to combine when you merged (changed) colors? I feel like I am missing a step.
Hi, Kris. Thanks for the question. I reread my post, but I’m not quite sure what you’re asking. Can you describe it in a little more detail?
Also, I did notice that I didn’t explain a step – maybe that has to do with what you’re asking. In the section titled “Consolidating Clusters” I have shown the new chart with only 4 colors. However, I didn’t explain that I also SORTED these by colors. Basically, I told Excel to put the red on top and then the green and then the blue.
Dana
Hello,
I used matches from 90-399cM and ended up with 5 clusters, 2 paternal and 3 maternal. I looked at the 3 maternal and there are no overlaps between them. Other than my mother, I don’t have any other matches above 399. My great grandfather (my mothers maternal grandfather) is a significant brick wall. I can see 2 names on my mothers fathers side in one group, and 2 names from my great grandmothers siblings side in another. I don’t recognise anyone in the 3rd maternal group.
Does this all makes sense with what you would expect?! I can’t work out if it is telling me something or not! My maternal grandmother only had one sibling that survived to an adult and she only had one child.
Any advice or help would be very much appreciated.
Alison
Hi, Alison. Yes, this looks fine. Since you are working on a particular brick wall – your great grandfather who I think you’re saying only had 2 children – it would be most helpful if you could get a descendant of that one sibling to test.
Dana
Hi Dana. Thank you for coming up with this method! I have two questions. 1) Why don’t my aunt and myself share any matches in the MyHeritage AutoClusters?? 2) Can you use the Leeds Method for Y-DNA matches also? Thank you 🙂
Trish
Hi, Trish. First of all, are you and your aunt at any other sites? Or do you see some matches if you are looking at just Shared DNA Matches and not AutoClusters? Are you both allowing matches to be seen? If you aren’t seeing any matches, please email me at drleeds@sbcglobal.net
As far as Y-DNA, no, unfortunately it isn’t helpful there. I’m hoping to blog about Y-DNA soon, so please watch for that!
Sincerely,
Dana
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Hi Dana!
I am afraid to combine clusters because I know that my mom’s mom’s side and my mom’s dad’s side have intermarried. Do I combine them anyway?
Thanks,
Beth
Hi, Beth. Great question! And, no, you never have to combine clusters. You can work with each cluster “as is.” I’d recommend doing these steps next: https://www.danaleeds.com/next-steps/
Dana